Sunday, April 08, 2007

Sorry for my lack of updates folks. I am blogging from Montreal this Easter Sunday, and I have been here since Friday. I heard it said somewhere that Montreal is a great city because Europeans always feel like they are in North America and North Americans always feel like they are in Europe.

Truer words were never spoken. I feel like I am smack in the middle of Paris or some other European city right about now; but that`s cool with the field. A little change of culture is a good thing. I also have to say for the record, that the people here are great. It`s a very cosmopolitan city with just about every race and nationality in full effect. Lots of museums and great restaurants if you are into that type of thing, and the scenery is all that.

So I am having a good time. No complaints from the field about this trip...well, (like you didn`t see this coming) although its`no biggie. Yesterday my lap top started acting up, and when I tried to sign on to the kiosk Internet machine in the ComplexeDesjardins, I noticed my URL was blacklisted. Like what the f**k? Asa, lord omar, and the rest of my Canadian buds will have to tell me about that one. Maybe it`s just typing in the word Negro that sent some sort of block on that bad boy. (Just a case of the Canadian PC police gone crazy) Who knows; but now my curiosity is peeked.

But that`s it, my only complaint so far, that and the high taxes on clothes. You have to understand, I live in Pennsylvania where there is no tax on clothes, so that took some getting used to. Unfortunately, it more than ate up the difference in my favorable exchange rate on my dollars. But hey, it`s all good.

Anyway, I will be home tomorrow, and I have a few things on my mind. I can`t wait to be back in the comfort of the fields where I can speak my mind to my hearts content.

Oh, there is one other thing I love about this place, there is no FAKE NEWS here!

Happy Easter to you, Field. And I'm so glad you're enjoying Montreal. My family lived there for a bit when I was little and I go back every few years. It's got a great vibe as long as it's not the dead of winter when everyone's freezing!

I have no idea what the black-listing of your URL is about. I've been accessing your blog (which is fantastic, btw) from my home in Canada with no problems whatsoever... maybe it was a block the wireless provider-kiosk put up?Glad you enjoyed Montreal. Yes tax can be quite the hamper here, but I'd rather pay more for my shirts than worry about how I will pay for a broken arm! (Such a typical Canadian response, no?)

The news in Canada is very point blank. During some of the the Hurricane Katrina aftermath/fiasco I was in Toronto & the news reporting was raw. I mean I preferred to stay in the hotel rm to watch the news rather than go out. It was like they reported in ways that were unbiased & they definitely were not afraid to dog out our government.

I feel you on the taxes, they can be wild. I brought a pair f Pumas last year while in Toronto & I swear there was at least 17 dollars in taxes; never again.

Again, I laughed out loud when I heard that term "patio negros." There was a report of Brazilian television today about color-aroused bias, and a Black Brazlian said he had to cut off his dreadlocks to get a job as a security guard in a mall. We had a good discussion about that with my older daughter.

Even as the story aired, I was hitting the post button on my blog article entitled, "Free Your African Hair!" , for which my wife agreed to be a role model.

I was a little bit afraid to "go there," but so far the response has been good.

The majority of Canadians speak English as their first language. The federal government recognizes both English and French as official languages, but New Brunswick is the only province that officially recognizes bilingualism with roughly a 50/50 split of Anglos and Francos. Quebec, with its Bill 101, is at the other end of the spectrum recognizing and fervently promoting French while suppressing English. This is done under the guise of language preservation, but has many ramifications around the country where it is felt to be xenophobic and high-handed. I am conversationally passable in French, but am embarrassed by my inability at being fluently bilingual. Employment wise, Canada is your oyster if you are fluent in both official languages.

La belle Province is a jewel in the North American crown to be true. Appréciez.

Yo man, Montreal ain't really Canada. All of Quebec is pretty much an accomodation after the French lost the whole damn thing in the French & Indian War in the 1750s. Go out to Calgary, etc. and you'll see plenty of folk who pirate the Fox New signal from across the border...

Yo man, his story is only half correct. Indeed you will likely find plenty of folk with pirate Fox News 'out west' as western Canada is where our right-wing fruit basket flowers, but as far as being in the real Canada? Yo, Field, you in it. 400+ years of Eastern Canadian culture and economy trump anything served up on the century old prairie.

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Money is nice, but being able to speak my mind is better.

"Real talk: Daniel Rubin has a great little piece up wherein he chats with The Field Negro, the Philly-based blogger who sharply ponders all things black on a daily basis. (Seriously, if you’ve never checked in with TFN, you should: Its author, Wayne Bennett, is a fantastic read who can cut through bullshit like a hot knife through butter, which is a far grosser analogy than I wanted to make, but there you have it.)" ~Philebrity~

"..While most of what he writes is tongue-in-cheek, his space is a safe house for candid discussions about race, especially in the comments section, where people of all colors meet."~~Daniel Rubin, "The Philadelphia Inquirer"~~

"To white people, Bennett's musings are like kitchen-table talk from a kitchen they may otherwise never set foot in. To African Americans, he is part of a growing army of black Internet amateurs who have taken up the work once reserved for ministers and professional activists: the work of setting a black agenda, shaping black opinion and calling attention to the state of the nation's racial affairs."

~~Richard Fausset, "L.A. Times"~~~

"That's why I love the blog "Field Negro" so much. Field, as he's known to his fans, has the sense of reality that it takes to call out the (CowPuckey) of blame beating by those who are in positions of power and their lackeys. Because of his handle and his unabashed way of writing about racial issues, Field is often cited as a "Black blogger." What he is, however, is a first-class detector of blame deflection and an excellent student of history. If you want to write about the past and future of repression there's really no other perspective to take - which is why everyone should read Field."

"Half a century after Little Rock, the Montgomery bus boycott and the tumultuous dawn of the modern civil rights era, the new face of the movement is Facebook, MySpace and some 150 black blogs united in an Internet alliance they call theAfroSpear.

Older, familiar leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, are under challenge by a younger generation of bloggers known by such provocative screen names as Field Negro, thefreeslaveand African American Political Pundit. And many of the newest struggles are being waged online."~Howard Witt-The Chicago Tribune~

"I had no idea, for example, of the extent of the African-American blogging world out there and its collective powers of dissemination.But now, after reading thousands of anguished, thoughtful comments posted on these blogs reflecting on issues of persistent racial discrimination in the nation's schools and courtrooms, what's clear to me is that there's a new, "virtual" civil rights movement out there on the Internet that can reach more people in a few hours than all the protest marches, sit-ins and boycotts of the 1950s and 60s put together." ~Chicago Tribune Reporter, Howard Witt~